That - whether or not there is a legal barrier on testing - will have an enormous influence as a global consensus against nuclear explosive testing.

The absence of explosive testing sharply raises the odds that a new weapon will fail or perform poorly in a war.

The UK was the first to ratify and has undertaken a voluntary moratorium for explosive nuclear testing.

The absence of explosive testing sharply increases the odds that a weapon will fail.

Most troubling of all to the atomic scientists, momentum is building in Congress to limit the explosive testing of nuclear arms.

The next assertion was that explosive testing was essential to insure weapon reliability.

First, their charges often bear on the technical feasibility of steps bitterly opposed by the labs, such as limiting the explosive testing of nuclear arms.

So the absence of explosive testing acts as a brake on development - just as new cars cannot be produced without a number of test drives.

So the absence of explosive testing acts as a brake on nuclear arms development.